


Falling in Flame

by lyricwritesprose



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Doctor Who: Academy Era, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 12:19:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11357376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricwritesprose/pseuds/lyricwritesprose
Summary: How beautiful things go wrong.  A study of what might have happened between the Doctor and the Master.





	Falling in Flame

**Author's Note:**

> Brit-picking and beta-ing by Persiflage.

Sometime in your youth—if you're lucky—you have a night when dreams are forged.

It happens at university, often. You meet someone; you talk with him. And then suddenly you're _talking with him—_ words have become what they truly could be, what they were always meant to be, thoughts flashing between the two of you without a chance of miscommunication, every nuance instantly grasped, every implication understood. Three hours later, back in your room, you're still talking. Not about everyday things—you're both still young, still made of fire and rash promises. No, this conversation spans universes. The secrets in the hearts of stars, the lies your family told you, the cold dark truth of entropy and how it might be defied—the universe _as is_ compared to the universe _as should be,_ and the tools you would need to make it that way.

It's like the formation of a sun. First, nothing but possibility and aimless dust; then, a disturbance, an ingathering, an instant or an eon when everything rushes together and forms a new and perfect shape—a growing brilliance—a new star in the night sky. Or perhaps it's a game, tossing ideas between the two of you without ever missing a catch—each new idea returning larger, brighter, sparking like a firecracker. Oh, you weave such plans, that night. _You could make the world work._ You can beat the dust off it and make the colors shine again, you can burn away pettiness and corruption, you can replace fossilized, pointless custom with truth and it would _work,_ you know it would. There is nothing beyond your reach.

You talk until dawn.

Generally, despite the expectations of billions of students across the universe, such conversations fail to produce revolution. But they do form bonds. They make you close.

That isn't always a good thing. Imagine that the person you talked with—your kindred spirit, the other half of your brain—started to go wrong.

It's nothing shocking. Nothing big. And it's hard to say where it starts. Really, there's nothing _wrong_ with feeling that your family's praise should come without the unspoken footnote, _very good, especially considering your problems._ Because there is a mystery, a never-identified neurological quirk—noticeable to others mostly in the form of tapping fingers, impatience, and the extreme measures necessary for sleep. And if the thing cannot be cured (which it can't; therapeutic telepaths can't even localize it), how can it be wrong to say, _I deserve better, I deserve their untempered admiration, not just their tolerance?_ You've felt that ache yourself.

You hear it again, though. _Deserve._ I deserve to come first in that subject. _She_ doesn't—soulless calculator that she is, turning out pretty but lifeless equations, a wind-up automaton could do the same if you programmed it well. And that harks back to your night of fire, so you agree; a glorious failure _should_ mean more than a dead, inert success, and what are unbroken bones if they simply mean someone is afraid to fly?

_I deserve._

You _don't_ deserve, he throws at you once, during a quarrel. You don't deserve the time of day from me, I'm doing you a favor even talking to you (the more fool me). Oh, you cut each other, that day—not physically, no, but deeply nonetheless. It should end every trace of rapport between you.

But, to renounce that night—you said things that _made_ you. Your dreams and discontents, coalescing from incoherent dust into fierce light—you can point at what is wrong, now, when all you had before was vagueness and intuition. He's part of that, he's your mirror and your match, so you forgive him. And he would go mad without you around, he says, so he forgives you.

It nibbles around the edges and slides through the shadows, _deserve_ does, and there are many things he deserves. He thinks highly of himself. Of course, so do you. It's natural to you both.

And then there's the day he's rejected for advanced telepathic training. _Inappropriate temperament,_ that's the verdict.

He rages. He hurls his possessions onto the floor. And you share his rage, because you _know—_ he's strong, powerful, with a psyche like a flawed diamond.

(To you, at least, that flaw makes him fascinating, not diminished. You remember—because you can talk to him about anything, ask him anything, and there are very few things you haven't shared—listening to music through his ears. The phantom beat adds layers the composer never intended, the most soothing of meditation music attaining a sense of unease, as if somewhere, beyond serene hills, an army is mustering. Not comforting, perhaps. But beautiful.)

It's the noise, he says now, the noise in his head, they heard about it and marked his name off the list before he ever met his examiner. Sheerest prejudice. Blatant injustice. Foul, wicked, and unfair.

And then he stops, mid-gesture, and says the words that should have sent a much stronger chill down your spine. _Of course, I could just take it . . ._

Because the examination—it requires the examiner to enter the candidate's mind. And even the most powerful telepath is vulnerable just then.

Change a single idea. That's all. A zero to a one, a no to a yes.

Criminal, of course, and not a minor crime. But is it really _unethical?_ It's correcting a mistake, that's all. Giving himself what he deserves.

You argue, of course. (Do you argue strongly enough? It was a very long time ago. It's difficult to be sure.) There has to be a legal way. Appeal the examination, as is right and proper, request a second, unprejudiced examiner—and surely, _surely_ his aptitude is so obvious that there won't be any need for chicanery. He shouldn't do it. He couldn't. What of the things you talked about, the things you both believe in, the universe where everyone could spread their wings—isn't any violation of the will, however minor, an insult to that?

He pauses, then gives you a smile you've never seen before. _Of course, I didn't mean it; I'd never_ actually _do it. Just thinking out loud . . ._

You believe him. Because you want to. Because not trusting him feels like distrusting your own hand, and you hate it.

He requests the appeal. He's admitted to training.

You don't ask.


End file.
